Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Thursday, 9 November 1876 (28 October)

At the very least, my stay here will have served to acquaint me with the splendid literature of my country. But what do these poets and writers speak of? Of over there.
And first, let us cite Gogol, our star of humour.
His description of Rome made me both weep and groan, and one cannot have any conception of it without reading it. Tomorrow I shall translate it. And those who have had the happiness of seeing Rome will understand my emotion.
Oh, when shall I ever leave this grey, cold, dry, sad country... even in summer, even in bright sunshine the leaves are puny and the sky is less blue than... over there.
I believe I am falling in love with Grand Duke Nicolas.

Notes

Nikolai Gogol (1809–1852), the great Russian writer; his novella Rome (1842) contains an ecstatic description of the city that moved Marie to tears. ↩
Grand Duke Nicholas Konstantinovich (1850–1918), nephew of Alexander II, disgraced and exiled after the Fanny Lear scandal and the diamond theft of 1874. Marie had described his portrait on 13 August 1876, and on 26 October noted that she had not been mistaken about it. ↩